The Oxfam/Cheshire Life garden will be one of the highlights of this year's RHS Tatton Show
Alexandra Froggatt from Brereton is one of three finalists in the National Young Designer of the Year competition and will showcase her talents at this year's Tatton Show.
The 25-year-old, who launched her own landscape design company last year, will find out if she has won the competition when judging takes place on the first day of the show, July 20th.
The competition, which is now in its second year, is open to designers and students under 28 from across the UK. Each finalist has received a grant of �12,000 to create a garden on the theme of Urban Greening.
Alexandra, who launched her own garden design company, azaleagardendesign.co.uk, last year, said: 'I am very interested in sustainable gardening and my garden is designed to help protect against global warming and the increase in flooding.
'The design includes a sunken rain garden with flood tolerant planting and living walls and roof which demonstrate how creative gardening can buffer the effects of flooding.'
See the profile on the Rider on the Storm garden
The final preparations are being made for the biggest celebration of gardens in the north of England. More than 100,000 people are expected to visit this year’s RHS Tatton Show as gardening enjoys a surge in interest.
And the show will be extra special for Sam Youd who will be creating his final show garden as the head gardener at Tatton Park. After more than 30 years in the post, Sam will retire in March and he’s hoping to bow out on a high note. ‘When there’s a downturn in the economy people turn to gardening,’ he said. ‘People think if they can get closer to the earth it has the answer to their problem.
‘We are expecting a good year for the show. The number of visitors to Tatton this year has been amazing, even when the weather has not been good.’
His show garden this year will celebrate 100 years of Tatton’s Japanese garden. And Sam, who was Cheshire Life’s gardening expert for many years, added: ‘It’s my final Tatton Show for Tatton but it’s only fair to let someone else have a go and it’s time for me to go off and do other things.’
Once he hangs up his tools at Tatton, Sam will run gardening courses and will begin advisory work at some of Cheshire’s finest gardens and estates. ‘I will be able to stand back and take an overview,’ he said. ‘When you’re in a garden all the time you do things a certain way and even if I only visit once every six months I’ll be able to make suggestions and see things that people who are deeply involved won’t be able to.’
Sam’s garden will be just one of the highlights at the show, which runs from July 21st-24th.We have teamed up this year with Oxfam to create the When the Waters Rise garden which will highlight ways people across the world are coping with climate change, in particular flooding.
Designed by Dori and Howard Miller, the garden will show some of the ways people have adapted their lives to cope, such as putting buildings on stilts and creating floating rafts to grow produce on.
Nicola Sansom, from Oxfam, said: ‘The garden should help make people think about the issue of climate change, but also be inspired by the innovative gardening techniques being used across the world to adapt to the changing climate.
‘By doing this using British plants, it will also be a practical example of how people here in the UK can adapt their gardens to protect plants against flooding.’
